ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the origins of cities: why they occurred, where they occurred, and when they occurred. Of particular interest is the effect that cities had on their inhabitants. Our story begins in Africa 75,000 years ago. In 2004, two startling archaeological findings were made in Africa. The first was the discovery of two ostrich eggshell beads, believed to be about 70,000 years old, from an archaeological dig site in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The other find was in a coastal area in South Africa. The find consisted of 30 seashells that were perforated in a similar manner to suggest that they were used as beads and thus would be evidence of the use of jewelry from a human ancestor nearly 75,000 years ago. If in fact these ostrich eggshells and seashells were used as jewelry, they would provide concrete evidence of symbolic thinking in ancient humans-30,000 years earlier than previously thought. These findings may provide some answers to the debate whether modern behavior evolved gradually, or whether there was a sudden “creative emergence” about 45,000 years ago. The account that follows is based on two 2004 articles by Hillary Mayell (2004a, 2004b) in National Geographic News.
